Welcome to “Merrydowns” 12th annual on farm ram sale.   With the ever increasing number of sheep breeds available in the current market we think it is important that the commercial farmer has the option to be able to purchase DNA tested pure bred Romney and Southdown rams – an option which “Merrydowns” provides.  We continue to focus on the quality of our wool clip and the amount of meat on our sheep.

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We are using EBV’s again this year as we feel they are more commercially relevant.  Our Romney and Southdown Studs continue to be SIL recorded; these are used as a culling tool only.  Our SIL figures are real figures for this farm, this environment, and our management as our figures are not cross flocked (we refuse to use inferior rams just because they have a high index).  Our linkages with other breeders are minimal, ensuring we remain independent and a source of out cross for the New Zealand sheep industry.  This decision severely impacts on our indexes and EBV’s; however, we stand by this decision as it does not affect the performance of our sheep in a true commercial environment.  We are not solely focussed on high index sheep we are more interested in the commercial traits of; lambing percent to the ram, ensuring that the ewes have the capacity to hold and rear their lambs, top quality wool and weights, longevity, structural soundness, constitution, growth rate, early maturity, actual fertility and quality first.

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We eye muscle scanned 122 Southdown ram hoggets on the 10 April 2019 (the average birth date was 10 October 2018); the average live weight was 55.8 kg’s, they averaged 18.8 EMA with a top EMA scan of 23.8.  299 Romney ram hoggets were scanned on the 23 April 2018 (the average birth date was 15 October 2018) they averaged an EMA of 15.2 with a top EMA scan of 20.8 and had an average live weight of 48.0 kgs.  

 

Below are the flock average EBV’s for the current sale rams:

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